Painting featuring a colourful small bird perched and facing a branch of a tree in pink blossom

Okuhara Seiko was a Literati artist in Japan during the late 19th century.
Literati art focuses on expressive ink paintings with an emphasis on personal feelings and themes of literature and nature #WomensArt

Painting featuring a close-up of the petals of a light pink flower

Pink sweet peas, 1927 by Georgia O'Keeffe #womensart

A group of people in fairytale style Medieval costume try to survive in a Germanesque town which has been flooded with porridge. Two women stand at the top of a monument in the town Square while another man punts along in a barrel.

‘A sea of porridge’
The Magic Porridge Pot, 1971
Artist: Robert Lumley

Monochrome photograph featuring a standing white woman with short hair facing forwards dressed in dark trousers and top in an artist studio

Finnish artist, author and illustrator Tove Jansson in her home studio, 1956 #WomensArt

The soundtrack, though labelled VL, has stuff from She Killed In Ecstasy and elsewhere, and I'd enjoyed it for ages before seeing VL (which I've largely forgotten, though in my memory it's full of odd repetitive loops?) SheKIE is better, but sounds like you should steer clear!

😂 ha, just seen this after my last post, proclaiming my love of this mad groovebomb of a soundtrack. Mibby works better without the movie?!

5 stars each for the stunning soundtracks of those first two though!🎶

A wonderful, beautiful and moving book, I love it; and Alan Warner's analysis is focused, engaged & insightful. #JamesKelman Kieron Smith, Boy.

Good to know, now on the lookout for others👍🔍

Marghanita Laski, The Victorian Chaise-Longue. Brilliantly controlled immersion in dreadful loss-of-agency, dislocation, and very #Lynchian psychogenic fugue. As ever, always revisit the relevant @backlisted.bsky.social episode for further enrichment and enjoyment, one of the best.

Great Shirley Hughes cover of Nina Bawden's Squib. Mibby bit dated, but a swift engaging tale that weaves fairytale woods, rivers, changelings & darkness thru themes of anxiety, safety, fear & loss, all effectively framed within the viewpoints of the children. Moved to tears in final pages.

Saturday afternoon listening, loving the baritone sax. Under-the-radar Leo Parker's only two records are adorable rollicks across swing, blues, bop, soul & gospel. Pure delight. #jazz #bluenote #RollinWithLeo #RudyVanGelder Mad Lad Returns!

For a great trip to Northampton, combine brilliant Heyford Books with a visit to the local museum (including Shoe Gallery!), the amazing Albion Bar, and an overnight at the romantic and beautiful Aviator Hotel #artdeco. Can't wait to return!

Heyford Books is on Kettering Road in Northampton. The range is amazing, the staff are wonderful, the prices are great. Worth going into Northampton for if ever nearby. After I left, I wished I'd bought another ten! #SecondhandBooks #booksky

The Edith Nesbit comes from this magnificent October haul from my favourite new bookshop of 2025, Heyford Books in Northhampton. Looking forward to reading these across 2026!

Been slowly building a reading den down the garden and it's nearly finished. E Nesbit, Five Children And It.

Cask Masters #Benrinnes #maltwhisky #gift. More often used for Johnny Walker blends, this is a great mouthful: chewy, cerealy white fruits, with a wee lip-smacking creaminess 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

#DaphneduMaurier My Cousin Rachel. Whose story is this? Gripping, descriptive, mesmeric prose, building rapport with a narrator who might be slipping into contradiction & delusion in his construction of Rachel and her story. About 'truth', tropes & stories. So readable and enjoyable, a classic.

Thanks, many intriguing books I haven't yet read! Decades since I read The Living Mountain (also loved her The Quarry Wood); but it's never left me.

I love The Bandwagon, top 3 MGMers for sure! Fred at his fabbest, Cyd so strong & long & agile, Girls Hunt's a beaut, Dancing in the Dark such a swooner. But pushing it up to top level is the elegance and presence of Jack Buchanan.

Fave library books of 2025, Kevin Rowland and Penelope Mortimer.
Fave books I left behind somewhere, Sara Gran in Calabria, Mick Herron in Thurso.

A fave 27 from 2025!

Top 10 books of 2025 (from 100, in order)
#DorothyDunnett #DodieSmith #AntonioWhite #MFKFisher #ToveJansson #OliviaManning #GeorgetteHeyer #Melville
Astonishing writing. Grateful.

December eating mode.
Credit Errington Barn, George Mewes Glasgow, Celino's Alexandra Parade, Dunlop Dairy, The Cheese Lady Haddington & Ian Mellis Glasgow for 2025 cheese joy 🧀

That looks a fab read, thanks, and I look forward to looking in more detail. I've been avoiding DD links/sites until I finished Gemini; which I did recently, so I can now open links without fear. I love wandering the Borders lands that Francis and co (and their ancestors) roamed.

Ha, thanks for that great link, Bill. Yes, it's hard enough to piece together the relations between what remains of Culter, Boghall, etc; but on certain days, remains so completely evocative. Same when down near (?) 'Flaws Valley' last week!

Shouldn't post in the middle of a walk: #GameOfKings!

From the roof of the Crawfords' Boghall Castle: #GameOfThrones #DorothyDunnett "To the east lay the roofs of the barony town of Biggar, smoking in the socket of Bizzyberry Hill...the horizon was jumbled with hills." A brilliant walk up Bizzyberry this morn, pondering the ghosts of Midculter. #Lymond

Paulette Goddard expressing #MyBreakfastsThisWeek...!
Chaplin's #ModernTimes gets better every time I see it; it's brisk, mad, tough & graceful.
#movies

I love these, two of the very best winter soundtracks. Excitement, nerve, verve, sweetness & sadness: #JohnBarry #OnHerMajestysSecretService Mystery, magic, enchantment, wonder & joy: #EnnioMorricone #IMagiRandagi #soundtracks